Unit 1. THE ENGINEERING PROFESSION

In an instant, a life can divide into Before and After. A phone call, a news flash can do it. Invariably, something remains as a reminder. For Joseph, a colleague at Chloe's office, it is Bach playing on the stereo before the screech of brakes, the crunch of metal, an ambulance, the hospital.

"I hear Bach now and think: oh, yes, I used to love that. Before. In my other life."

For Chloe's sister, Anna, it is a body shampoo. She told Chloe how the shower was hot and steam clouded the glass. She stood in the warm fog, then sniffed the fresh, pine scent of the new Badedas body shampoo. That clean scent of mountains and good health. Just seconds later, her fingers, tentative, pressed back and forth, smoothing the skin as her brain bristled indignantly. It can't be! But it is, yes, it is. I think it is. A lump.

And after – doctors visits, surgery, chemo, hair loss, pain.

Chloe will be reminded of these conversations in four minutes. Right now she chooses a pretty china cup, Staffordshire, patterned with red roses. She pokes the tea bag with a spoon while she pours in the boiling water and then decides to start the laundry while the tea steeps. Dan's shirts are already loaded in the washer but she pulls them out anyway, to shake them. She is nervous that a stray ballpoint might lie forgotten in a pocket, leave a Caspian Sea of navy ink never to be bleached away. As she shakes the shirt, something flies out, floats up like confetti to land on the lid of the dryer. She studies, frowning, a pair of ticket stubs for a New York City theatre.

She is puzzled at first. Then remembers, of course, the business conference in New York City. Seven days had stretched to ten; Dan had been exhausted when he came home, complaining about the demands of clients, the tedious conversation of his colleagues. Chloe studies these tickets with a sense of unreality, as if she is watching herself on a movie set, frowning for the camera. But her mind is seething with questions. Dan had not told her of this theatre visit. Off-Broadway does not seem appropriate, somehow. Hedda Gabler is an odd choice for an evening with a client. Or a colleague.

With cold clarity, Chloe sees that these stubs will lead to questions that she does not want to ask, but must ask. That will lead to answers she does not want to hear. Later, a Decree Absolute, loneliness.

Chloe knows as she stirs her tea, stirs what is now gungy, tarry soup, that she is already in the after. She throws the tea away, gets a fresh teabag, starts over. The tea, though freshly brewed, still tastes thick and stale.

She understands now, that she has moved in space, slid towards some other life. She has crossed that invisible but solid line. Lipton's Orange Pekoe has joined Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and Badedas with Original Scent, to be forever in the before. And there is no going back. (Mary McCluskey)

***

Crispin Delancey raised his head from his sunbed and turned it slightly to look at the woman who was about to lower herself into the aquamarine pool. The effort was painful. He was lying on his stomach, which was not quite what it had once been, and muscled buried beneath the layers of untanned flesh twangled uncomfortable when he tried to call them into service.

She was thirty-ish, he supposed. Her compact body wore a yellow bikini like a second skin. She had light, crinkly hair which sparkled in the sharp mid-morning sunlight, creating altogether the appearance of a svelte, illuminated lemon. Crispin watched her as she swan proficiently across the circular pool. He didn’t see her at the airport yesterday, but then there’d been several busloads of them destined for different hotels.

‘You’ll burn yourself if you don’t do something about it!’ A large tapestry bag arrived by Crispin’s right ear accompanied by his fun-loving, fattish, forty-something wife, Dodo. ‘Remember last year? You looked like a betroot. And it’s worse now, because of the ozone layer.’

Crispin turned over, sat up, and squinted at the sun on its busy skin-damaging journey across the sky. ‘Okay, where’s the stuff, then?’

This is a big rectangle. Inside the rectangle there is a circle, a small square and three triangles. On the left at the top there is a small circle. On the right at the top there is a small square. In the middle there are three small triangles. On the right at the bottom there is a point.

Task IV. Read and translate the text.

Engineering is a very practical activity and one of the oldest occupations in history. It is the process of applying the latest achievements of science and technology into practice. Since the Ancient Times people began to seek devices and methods of work that were efficient and humane. One result of the rapid expansion of scientific knowledge was an increase in the number of engineering specialties. So nowadays there are a lot of branches in engineering.

Mechanical engineers are experts in the design and manufacture of tools and machines. Mechanical engineering has marine, automobile, aeronautical, heating and ventilating branches. Electrical engineering deals withproducing and applying electricity in various fields of national economy. It has the following branches: electrical installation, electrical generation, lighting, etc. Components and equipment for computing and communicating are the products of electronic engineering. Civil engineering deals with constructing bridges, roads and airports.

Within the field of mechanical engineering the major subdivision is industrial engineering which is concerned with complete mechanical systems for industry. Each engineer is a member of a team often headed by a systems engineer able to combine the contributions made by all the different disciplines.

Task V. Fill in the blanks in this diagram with the branches of en­gineering that you know.